The identification and tracking of surgical instruments and other equipment used in surgical and medical applications is difficult and time consuming. Many of the personnel handling the equipment are minimally educated regarding the application of the equipment, common name, or correct routing through cleaning and preparation for use. Tracking of the equipment to assure proper maintenance, use-life schedule, and location is also difficult. These tasks are generally accomplished through manual record keeping, visual inspection, and processing of all items grouped together without specific item identification. Identification of the equipment is provided through visual marking, either by mechanical etching, coating of a portion of the equipment with a colored plastic film, or identification with a color coding “band” such as the Surg-I-Band color coding system available from Scanlan International of St. Paul, Minn. These methods provide for non-specific identification or group recognition in a variety of use and preparation areas.
With the development of cost effective electronic identification technology several methods have become adopted to provide specific and unique tracking of medical equipment. Limitations include the necessity of applying a label containing the information (bar coding/2D labeling) and access to a “reader” to translate the information. More recently RFID (radio frequency identification) has become adapted for the identification and tracking of some medical equipment. RFID tags are placed on devices and used to record the movement through the use and maintenance cycle of the device. The difficulty with this technology is placement onto new devices. An even greater challenge is the attachment to and implementation of this technology to the entire capital base of equipment currently in use throughout the medical care industry.